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I just picked up a collection of Lovecraft's work, edited in chronological order. I've only read 3 short stories so far, but they all seemed to have a theme of "I had a vivid imagination once, and now I'm crazy forever." I'm assuming his plots branch out as he matured as a writer.

Most of his stuff is pretty much that. There are a few outstanding tales but the "I'm crazy forever" or the "I've seen things so horribly incomprehensible that I'm going to commit suicide" it's a staple of his narrative.
but besides that being how most of his tales begin and/or end. What happens in between it's usually different.
Of course his narrative is built around the concept of the things that are beyond our comprehension and the insignificance of man in the larger scheme. So you're going to end up seeing patterns through most of his work.

But what if it is? If the spambots have reached existentialism it can't be long till they surpass us entirely. They will gather and ponder the meaning of existence, communicating in a language composed entirely of suspicious hyperlinks, and we ... we wil be the spammers.

I haven't read them for a while but I'd like to draw your attention towards The Belgariad and The Malloreon by David Eddings. Formulaic in the best way, they use every trope there is. From the first chapter you can predict where it will end, but for all that there are few better fantasy epics.

Spent the past eleven days reading the first twenty novels in the Anita Blake series by Laurell K. Hamilton. I'd read the first ten or so some years ago, but didn't remember them very clearly so I reread those. Kind of frustrating. All the sex gets seriously tedious very quickly (and you can't even just skip those parts because sometimes important things happen in the middle of it) and there's a tendency to finish the stories rather abruptly and then wrap them up in a short epilogue. The world is interesting and some of the characters work quite well too, so reading the series is sort of equal parts annoyance and curiosity.

Aaron Dembski-Bowden - The First Heretic (Warhammer 30k)
Hugh Thomas - Conquest: Cortes, Montezuma, and the Fall of Old Mexico (or how 500 greedy Spaniards with the help of a few canons, horses and germs laid waste to the Aztec empire)

Also trying to find a specific passage in a Nietzsche book. Not using online search because I actually enjoy the process somewhat. Also, I'm not a spambot.

Now re-reading Mortal Engines. It is every bit as wonderful as I remember. Plus it's a super-quick read now - 300 pages to westy aged 10 was a lot of pages. Now it's the second-smallest book I've read for (literally) years.

Just finished Death Masks and the graphic novel version of Storm Front from the Dresden Files series. I'm gearing up to run an RPG in the Fate-base Dresden system and I wanted to get a stronger grip on the world and tone before I set off making my own adjustments to it.

Jim Butcher need an editor. The number of spelling errors and continuity mistakes was rather impressive. But the characters are a lot of fun, the mythos is interesting, and the fight scenes are incredibly well written. The dialog bounces from fantastic and snappy to ... painful. In short, damn good pulp fare with a cast more than worthy of some better editing. The plots aren't half bad, either.

Two books into the Warhammer 40K Horus Heresy series. Never read any W40K books before, so I don't know if it's a really bad place to start, but the novels are okay so far. Not completely gripping, but decent enough writing.

Two books into the Warhammer 40K Horus Heresy series. Never read any W40K books before, so I don't know if it's a really bad place to start, but the novels are okay so far. Not completely gripping, but decent enough writing.

It takes a while to get going but I find the series really enjoyable now (up to #14). The authors vary, generally everything by Dan Abnett is very good stuff. As a starting point, the Heresy is pretty much the founding myth of 40k.